Or maybe…you can forgive purely, honestly and without any kind of dirty gray ring around the edges of your apology as though it isn’t real just because you don’t forget.
Maybe you don’t really need to forget because the lessons you learned from the conflict and the resolution are too important. And if we don’t learn the lessons we’re given, we just get to do them over and over.
Plus, I’m pretty swamped with forgetting keys, errands and the diaper bag.
God keeps telling me, don’t forgive because… just forgive. It’s hard to do that sometimes. I keep trying to justify why I forgive.
That is such an important thought, Diana. No “because”. No qualifiers to the forgiveness. Thank you so much for commenting.
I forgive for selfish reasons. I don’t want to stay stuck; I want to move on. Whenever I hear myself telling one of those victim stories of what someone has done to me, I silently tell myself, “Go for the Oscar, bitch!” and quickly change the subject.
But how else do you keep your acting skills in tip/top shape? Seriously, I think it is one of the beautiful things about forgiveness that it seems it is for the other person yet it is ourselves that get so much benefit. So often the person we forgive is clueless at the “gift” we gave them.